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>> But I completely and whole heartedly support any audits, lawsuits, investigations, whatever that anybody wants to do. I say audit and go through discovery as

by eigen 5y ago

>> But I completely and whole heartedly support any audits, lawsuits, investigations, whatever that anybody wants to do. I say audit and go through discovery as many times as people want. > Also consider what you are saying about the ballots, that if a bad person gets access to them post facto, that that is bad. seems that 1 bad actor can taint the ballots for future discovery. also, unlimited discovery just leads to a Gish Gallop. looking for traces of bamboo, kinetic artifacts, routers, etc.

thepasswordis 5y ago
>looking for traces of bamboo, kinetic artifacts, routers, etc. How many conservative friends do you have? I don't think people understand the positive effect that the Arizona ballot has had on their faith in the election. It was "we're looking for bamboo fibers because there is a claim that these ballots were printed in China, where bamboo is used to make paper, and we didn't find any, so that seems unlikely." Those CrAzY things actually have a calming effect on the conspiracies, not a fueling one. There are some people who are susceptible to conspiracies who will never let this go (in the same way that their left leaning counterparts never let Russian collusion stories, or governor kidnapping plots go), but for your average, not-that-into-politics conservative voter, the audits are good.
- MagicWishMonkey 5y ago
  Those people are now 100% convinced that the election was fraudulent... I don't see how that's a good thing?
  - thepasswordis 5y ago
    Which group is 100% convinced the election was fraudulent?
    - MagicWishMonkey 5y ago
      The vast majority of Republicans think the election was stolen - https://www.prri.org/spotlight/the-big-lie-most-republicans-believe-the-2020-election-was-stolen/ https://www.prri.org/spotlight/the-big-lie-most-republicans-... That number is likely even higher, now, after the crap that the GOP is pulling in Arizona. One of my close friends (a conservative, who doesn't even like Trump) is now convinced that the Democrats somehow stole the election. It's insane.
      - thepasswordis 5y ago
        Which thing do you think will do more to convince your friend that the election was clean? 1) You are not allowed to look at the ballots, and if you do you are traitor. Just trust us and stop asking questions. 2) Look at these things as many times as you want.
        MagicWishMonkey 5y ago
        I point out that there have been multiple audits, already, and no proof of fraud was found. Doing a third audit, with zero oversight/accountability, is not a serious attempt to detect fraud. It's a means to "discover" wrongdoing that can't be proven/disproven and further confuse people about what really happened.
        dane-pgp 5y ago
        Unfortunately option 2 isn't what's being offered here in any legitimate way. Instead there is a stream of bizarre theories which are given as much publicity as possible, before being quietly discarded and replaced with the next one. The point isn't to reach the truth, but to cement in people's minds the idea that a massive crime has occurred, based on the psychological bias of "there's no smoke without fire", despite all the smoke being generated by a smoke machine. This strategy of misinformation has long been known, and was portrayed quite brilliantly in the 1962 film "The Manchurian Candidate": > Are they saying: "Are there any Communists in the Defense Department?" No, of course not, they're saying: "How many Communists are there in the Defense Department?" https://www.quotes.net/mquote/121163 https://www.quotes.net/mquote/121163
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > How many conservative friends do you have? I don’t think people understand the positive effect that the Arizona ballot has had on their faith in the election. Your friends may be different, but all the public evidence I’ve seen is that Republicans and Trump supporters (not exactly the same universe) have gotten less confident in the 2020 election over time (including the course of the AZ “audit”), not more.
- jfengel 5y ago
  The audit hasn't produced its report yet. They haven't said anything about bamboo fibers one way or the other. If they had discovered something obvious, it's likely that they would have leaked it (and gotten their report in on time). But I suspect that they'll find something to point out in their draft report due next week -- not a smoking gun, but something sufficient to show that the fraud was just too clever to have left one. So I'll be curious to know what your conservative friends think when the draft report is released next week. I imagine there will be an HN article about it, so I'll keep an eye out there.

by eigen 5y ago

thepasswordis 5y ago

>looking for traces of bamboo, kinetic artifacts, routers, etc. How many conservative friends do you have? I don't think people understand the positive effect that the Arizona ballot has had on their faith in the election. It was "we're looking for bamboo fibers because there is a claim that these ballots were printed in China, where bamboo is used to make paper, and we didn't find any, so that seems unlikely." Those CrAzY things actually have a calming effect on the conspiracies, not a fueling one. There are some people who are susceptible to conspiracies who will never let this go (in the same way that their left leaning counterparts never let Russian collusion stories, or governor kidnapping plots go), but for your average, not-that-into-politics conservative voter, the audits are good.

MagicWishMonkey 5y ago
Those people are now 100% convinced that the election was fraudulent... I don't see how that's a good thing?
- thepasswordis 5y ago
  Which group is 100% convinced the election was fraudulent?
  - MagicWishMonkey 5y ago
    The vast majority of Republicans think the election was stolen - https://www.prri.org/spotlight/the-big-lie-most-republicans-believe-the-2020-election-was-stolen/ https://www.prri.org/spotlight/the-big-lie-most-republicans-... That number is likely even higher, now, after the crap that the GOP is pulling in Arizona. One of my close friends (a conservative, who doesn't even like Trump) is now convinced that the Democrats somehow stole the election. It's insane.
    - thepasswordis 5y ago
      Which thing do you think will do more to convince your friend that the election was clean? 1) You are not allowed to look at the ballots, and if you do you are traitor. Just trust us and stop asking questions. 2) Look at these things as many times as you want.
      - MagicWishMonkey 5y ago
        I point out that there have been multiple audits, already, and no proof of fraud was found. Doing a third audit, with zero oversight/accountability, is not a serious attempt to detect fraud. It's a means to "discover" wrongdoing that can't be proven/disproven and further confuse people about what really happened.
      - dane-pgp 5y ago
        Unfortunately option 2 isn't what's being offered here in any legitimate way. Instead there is a stream of bizarre theories which are given as much publicity as possible, before being quietly discarded and replaced with the next one. The point isn't to reach the truth, but to cement in people's minds the idea that a massive crime has occurred, based on the psychological bias of "there's no smoke without fire", despite all the smoke being generated by a smoke machine. This strategy of misinformation has long been known, and was portrayed quite brilliantly in the 1962 film "The Manchurian Candidate": > Are they saying: "Are there any Communists in the Defense Department?" No, of course not, they're saying: "How many Communists are there in the Defense Department?" https://www.quotes.net/mquote/121163 https://www.quotes.net/mquote/121163
dragonwriter 5y ago
> How many conservative friends do you have? I don’t think people understand the positive effect that the Arizona ballot has had on their faith in the election. Your friends may be different, but all the public evidence I’ve seen is that Republicans and Trump supporters (not exactly the same universe) have gotten less confident in the 2020 election over time (including the course of the AZ “audit”), not more.
jfengel 5y ago
The audit hasn't produced its report yet. They haven't said anything about bamboo fibers one way or the other. If they had discovered something obvious, it's likely that they would have leaked it (and gotten their report in on time). But I suspect that they'll find something to point out in their draft report due next week -- not a smoking gun, but something sufficient to show that the fraud was just too clever to have left one. So I'll be curious to know what your conservative friends think when the draft report is released next week. I imagine there will be an HN article about it, so I'll keep an eye out there.